Bitcoin exchange Bitstamp suspends service in wake of compromise

UK-based bitcoin exchange Bitstamp has temporarily suspended its service in the wake of an attack.

“We have reason to believe that one of Bitstamp’s operational wallets was compromised on January 4th, 2015,” they shared on the exhange’s website.

“As a security precaution against compromises Bitstamp only maintains a small fraction of customer bitcoins in online systems. Bitstamp maintains more than enough offline reserves to cover the compromised bitcoins,” they reassured users and urged them not to make deposits to previously issued bitcoin deposit addresses.

“Customer deposits made prior to January 5th, 2015 9:00 UTC are fully covered by Bitstamp’s reserves. Deposits made to newly issued addresses provided after January 5th, 2015 9:00 UTC can be honored,” they noted.

They have decided to suspend the service while the investigation is ongoing, they announced.

While the company’s CEO Nejc Kodric tried to reassure customers that their bitcoin is stored in cold storage (on offline systems) and, therefore, safe, this hasn’t been enough to stop them worrying and fearing a repeat of the Mt. Gox disaster.

According to Silicon Angle, users have complained of having withdrawal problems with Bitstamp this past week, and the company apparently hasn’t been responding to support tickets during that time.

Earlier this year, Bitstamp has been hit with and has survived a DDoS attack.